A Craptacular weekend...

D

DaQo'tah Forge

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hI this is DaQo'tah

Last Sunday night I was all set to tell you guys what fun I had forgeing my new 52100 blade. ( my 2nd!)

Yes, I had a few moments where ..my wife must have thought she was married to a nutcase,( my idea to start my coal forge inside the garage out of the wind, but sending all the smoke into her house, well, that was a bit of a mistake).. but it was all in good knife making fun.

Then,,,for some reason on late Sunday night, as I just started to knock all the scale of my forged blade with an old 36 grit belt, I decided that the blade was a bit bent in the middle.

I had seen Ed Fowler a few times in his video hit his 52100 steel to make it straight, so I decided to hit mine a few times too, just like he did.

However thinking back on it now,,,I guess Mr Fowler was hitting a hot blade right out of his forge, not like mine that had been sitting in the unheated shop over night.

I broke the blade in half with the first swat...Im just sick about it.

I have to contact Mr. Rex Walter and get some new steel, but that will have to waite until after christmas.
 
Sorry to here that, what state was the blade in? ie. hardned?

Keep at it, I've been at it a couple years now and still get plenty of blades to test by screwing up.;)
 
52100 can and will air harden. I forge the blade, then do the normalising heats, then place the blade in my forge to cool down slowly. I never quit a blade until it has gone through this process. some times a blade may wait up to 6 hours in the as normalised condition while I am forging other blades, but I never hit a blade with a hammer or try to manipulate it in any way after the last forging heat.

Manipulating a cold blade could very easilly result in a later failure. After a well researched heat treat, hardening and tempering, the blade will be much more resistent to stress induced failure than it is in the normalized or blade smith annealed state.

In other words I believe that you are looking for a wreck when you work cold steel.
 
Man that's a bummer. I know you must have worked hard on that. Don't get down. The things I learn the hardest are the things I learn the bestest. Next time you'll nail it good.

RL
 
I failed to note my condolences concerning yore wreck. Sorry it happened. Your experiences bring to light a lot of past learning, little things of great consequence, now almost forgotten. You make me young again, taking me back to the early days of knifemaking!

Stick with it and don't forget to share!
Thanks and Take Care
 
Makes you sick doesnt it. I must have had a good 8 hours of work into a big bowie (1095) had the heat treatment perfect (hardening part). Decided i needed to straighten a slight bend and "TINK" was the sound it made as it broke in half. I tried to straighten it before i tempered it. I cried in a bunch of bourbon that night.

Mark
 
Ugh DaQo'tah, sure stinks don't it!
I had a craptacular shop experience similar to your's a year or so ago cept mine happened on the buffer while I was cleaning up a short sword before putting the handles and bolsters on.
Never work on a buffer when you're tired!
16916741.jpg
 
Hi this is DaQo'tah...

I was reading all your comments so far about my broken blade to my wife this early morning, when she said something interesting...

I have the blade on the desk here next to my computer, and she was just sitting here looking at it when she said, "Why dont you just weld it and turn it around?'

I had never thought of that, although the blade is broken at the area where the 'racasso?' would be, there is still a bunch of steel left on the handle part. I had already forged the tip nice and round, and had the started to work the place where the guard would be set in, but... But on the other hand, this just might work out!

Okay, perhaps its going to a be a bit smaller knife due to the way I had already started to trim down the tang, but what the heck,,,,I'll give it a try...

the question is, can a welded on handle tang still be strong enough,,or perhaps the real question is, can I learn how to turn on my dad's old 'Buzz Box' welder and weld something like this strong enough?

let you guys know tonight!
 
I'd normalize the pieces to relieve the stress then weld it
After welding be sure to normalize again.,
the welding will harden the steel around the weld.

I have to say and I'm sure some of you did too from fore site.

while reading the post I had a (OH NO)I know what
is coming smile on my face)
only because I knew there was a lesson coming to be
learned by you with-in the next few words that I know
was coming with-in the next lines to come.,,
been there type smile.:(

NO.. it's not funny by any means, a lot of work can be and have been
lost because of not knowing.,
But a hard learned lesson that will not be soon forgotten, don't feel too bad
many have made the same boo boo's...
 
DaQo'tah:
what you have now is an evolved opportunity. You can use the steel in a smaller knife or you can weld an extension. Why not finish her up, then do some testing? You could estalish her cutting ability, then try a 90 degree flex and you would be testing the blade as well as the weld. If she passes you will know, the learning will apply to your future blades. Make the most out of your opportunity. Good Luck and Take Care
 
Hey DaQo'tah...

One suggestion... You better find some welding goggles for them cats if your going to be doing any welding. I remember a nursury rhyme about "3 blind mice". I can only imagine the stories you'll be telling about 2 blind cats:eek:

Rick
 
Ouch...
The steel gods will get you for hammering on cold steel every time!;)
Now with that said..Me now I would just stick the two pieces in a billet of Frontier Damascus:cool: But years ago my solution to problems like this was to just fire up the forge and forge out "2" new small blades from the two pieces.You can also weld on a tang to the main blade (just grind in about a 1/2 inch for a short stub tang then weld the new mild steel tang to that and then normalize it good and start grinding) and then forge out a small blade from the other piece.
This is actually what I would call a happy accident for a beginer maker as it makes you use your head and figure out what you can do with these pieces and not waist the steel.You learn allot by fixing your mistakes,never just throw the steel away and loose a lesson that could be learned.
Heck when I first started I was doing stock removal on old scrap saw blades,If I would mess up the grinds real bad I would just turn the bar around and make a tang from the messed up grind and shape another blade from the original tang side.I always said then that I would either get a knife out of the bar some how or there would be a pil;e of dust under the grinder.Heck I made allot of paring knives back then from the mistakes,but I learned how to grind and also how to fix a mess up while I was at it..

Chin up! all is not lost,Just go play in the fire some more and have fun.
Bruce
 
Hi this is DaQo'tah

The battle goes on...

I asked the guys down at work about my little problem, and one guy told me to heat the ends of the blade with a torch before I try to weld them. I did this. I knew I had to line up the two broken ends nice and flat, so I put them on the floor of my shop.

As I was about 1/4 inch the way done with the weld, I heard a 'SNAP"! , I stopped and noticed that the heat from the welder had popped a small section of the cement floor out,,

"What in the Sam Hill...?" (okay, that's not an exact quote)

The chip out of the cement was about an inch or so around and about 1/4 inch deep. To protect the floor, I decided to place a sheet of leftover Mild steel under the blade, (It sounds like a good idea, right?)

This time when I started to weld the blade, I only ended up spot welding the blade to the mild steel underneath. "Fiddle-dee-dee!" (Not even close to an exact quote)

next I decided to heck with trying to get the weld straight and flat and placed it into the vice.

That worked like a charm...

i have used the belt grinder to knock down all the messy junk of my welding, and have also started to place the first start to the edge lines too.

I have a photo up of how the blade looks right now. notice that im going to make what I had planned to be the hidden tang into the knife blade.

http://eastof29.tripod.com/daqotahforge2/id23.html
 
I think you've done right by listening to everyone here and continuing to work on it. Also have felt bad for you from first messag.e

That being said, as SOON as you said you put a piece of steel underneath it I knew what was going to happen and had to smile. I've been there and done that before. :)
 
Well, here's a fourteenth opinion.

I would cut it at the weld. Forge down a tang on the short piece, and then forge the other end into a knife.

That's the great thing about forging, you are limited by very few boundaries.

If it makes you feel any better, I have forged, thermal cycled, ground, and hardened...then tested to destruction, 8 blades in the last week...all in the name of experimenting and testing with my new salt rig.

I forged 10 more knives, and I suppose only 4 of them will not be tested to destruction.

And that's because JoeShredd, Danbo, and RokJok have their names on those 4 :)

You'll really learn and appreciate when you start breaking blades (on purpose even ;) ).

Nick
 
Hi this is DaQo'tah
I just finished about 3 hours with the broken blade...

it looks kinda good.

it might not be as good as my first blade ,,,not yet anyway, but I think things are back on track now.

Two of my shop cats, (Sparks and Knievel) sat next to me the whole time, they seemed genuinely concerned that work go well tonight

With their help,From here on out, I dont think anything else can go wrong.....

photo of tonights work at -

http://eastof29.tripod.com/daqotahforge2/id23.html
 
Hey DaQo'tah,

Looking good! A lot like a pronghorn. Congrats on moving forward with the project! My grandmother is a very creative and project minded individual, and when she makes a mistake on one of her projects she has a famous saying in our family... "It's not a mistake, It's just a new design". You gotta love positive minded people.

On a side note... I'm guessing that your cat named Knievel was the buffing wheel cat, how did sparks earn it's name?

Keep it going,
Rick
 
Hello Nick: Welcome to the quest for the high performance blade. It is a joy to find others who get hooked in the search. You will fine it most rewarding. Just remember it is ok to sell a knife every now and then.
Take Care
 
Hi Rick, this is DaQo'tah!

Ah yes, my cats,,,,

Out in my shop it's so cold, and at times it can get very lonely. My dog Zildjian is not really much into making knives, (being above such things), so my wife suggested I get a cat.

Now the idea of me,,,DaQo'tah and a cat??...well, it took some time to get used to that idea. But my wife did have a point, for I could use the company, and the horrible truth is, my shop is over run by mice, so I asked my sister-in-law for 2 of her cats.

I got the two cats on a Sunday night, and by Monday morning, I had already lost one, (don't ask me what happened, I never even had a good look at the run-away)

So I asked my wife to stop by the Animal Shelter and pick up a cat to keep the 1st cat company, (at the time I thought cats got lonely, I was so naive)

Instead my wife came home with two more cats?!,,,In time each cat has earned its own name from the experiences, we have shared while I have made my first blades.

The three cats are named SWAT, SPARK, and KNIEVEL.

Swat, (my first cat), got her name from the way she so mistreats the other cats. Swat hits and bites them all the time, all the other cats and dogs around my house get along with each other so wonderfully, but not Swat, she's just in a butt kicking mood all the time. Swat also has a dream; she wants to be the House Cat, one day...

Spark is the smartest of the 3; Spark got her name from the way she sits in the sparks whenever I use my bench stone grinder. I will be grinding away at some steel, when I look up over the grinder and there is Spark, sitting on the floor in the midst of the spark shower, with the look of total fascination on her face. (Note to all, when a guy says he understands the facial expressions of a cat, it might be time to worry)

Knievel is the most close to me, she sits at a side table next to where I stand while I grind. Knievel seems genuinely interested in how the work is going. She also is my Elk Hounds very best friend in the world. The two sit together and keep each other warm as I work.
Knievel got her name right away, for the very first day I got her, she ran under the car tire and I ran over her, she somehow lived, next she got tossed 15 feet across the shop by the buffer, and lived, was almost cut in half by the shop door, yet lived, and just today, she tried to climb up into my cars engine to get warm, and lived to tell about it.

Lets see...she started out with 9 lives right?.
 
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